


Jackie's Strength

by unfolded73



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Pete's World, Ten II/Rose off-camera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 20:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 2nd person, Jackie-POV ficlet</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jackie's Strength

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published 31 July 2009, written for xebgoc's birthday.

“See you later, Jacks,” Pete says to you like he has a thousand times before, but usually it’s with half a mind on the conference call he’s scheduled to take on the way in to the office or on the meeting he’s already running late for. Today his eyes meet yours, and you can see that he genuinely doesn’t want to let you out of his sight. He spent your first two days back in this universe oscillating wildly between anger at you for leaving and relief that you came back in one piece. You’ll say one thing, it’s led to some of the best sex of your life. And you’ve had some really good sex over the years, so that’s really saying something.

You kiss him on the cheek, smooth from his recent shave, and the smell of him makes you want to try to drag him back to bed, but you resist. Life has to go back to normal, a life of Vitex and Torchwood and charity galas and being mother to a three-year-old and a grown daughter with too much of the universe trapped behind her eyes.

It wasn’t until you went to bed that first night back that you allowed yourself to cry over the fact that you almost lost her forever. You never tried to stop her from getting back to the Doctor; it wouldn’t have worked, and she would have hated you for it. But every night that she dragged home from Torchwood, having eaten little and slept less, you thought if you could have wished the Doctor out of existence, you would have. Then you would remember that without the Doctor, your sweet Tony wouldn’t exist. It was like some awful trade of one child for another, because you knew that someday Rose would succeed, and then she’d be gone. Gone forever, and if she died you’d never have known it. The fact that she returned to this universe with you was more than you could have hoped for, and it unlocked all of that grief that you hadn’t allowed yourself to feel.

It’s Rose that you’re watching as you sip your morning coffee, sitting out on the patio with this new Doctor. They’re both so transparent; have been since a few days ago on that bloody Norwegian beach. So in love with each other that they hardly see anyone else, and so unbelievably clueless as to how to proceed. Although if you know body language, and you do, you’d say that they finally crossed one hurdle last night – good thing too, because you were this close to throwing them in a bedroom with a box of condoms and locking the door behind them. Now they’re leaning close together, ridiculous smiles on their faces, and if that’s not the look of two well-shagged people, then you aren’t Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler. Perhaps you should feel some protectiveness toward your daughter’s virtue, but that ship sailed a long time ago, and now you just want her to be happy.

You want to love him, this daft alien who isn’t as alien as he used to be, who gave you this new life with Pete and Tony, who you hope will make your daughter happy again, the way she used to be. But you’ve hated him too, hated him for taking your daughter away, for turning her into someone too grand for life on a council estate, for making her love him so much that she’d throw away everything else to be with him. It’s complicated, your feelings for him, and you suppose that Rose’s feelings are complicated too. You watch as he leans over and kisses her, and you wipe away a tear and hope.


End file.
